


(MAG40.5) Parallaxis

by GuiltyAdonis, 𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔰𝔢𝔭𝔥𝔬𝔫𝔢 (GuiltyAdonis)



Series: Parastichy [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, JONNY NAME YOUR PROTAGS SOMETHING ELSE CHALLENGE, Missing Scene, also it rlly annoys me that i have to specify which Jonathan sims i mean., references sasha/michael obviously but it's not the focus so no tag, sasha lives, this is pure exposition lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:42:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24279037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuiltyAdonis/pseuds/GuiltyAdonis, https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuiltyAdonis/pseuds/%F0%9D%94%AD%F0%9D%94%A2%F0%9D%94%AF%F0%9D%94%B0%F0%9D%94%A2%F0%9D%94%AD%F0%9D%94%A5%F0%9D%94%AC%F0%9D%94%AB%F0%9D%94%A2
Summary: Case #0160108. Statement of the alleged Sasha James, regarding her version of events, 29th July 2016. Statement recorded direct from subject, 1st August 2016.Statement begins.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker
Series: Parastichy [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1752661
Comments: 6
Kudos: 55





	(MAG40.5) Parallaxis

**Author's Note:**

> coda to [the thing, perhaps, is to eat flowers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23153701). please enjoy this exposition dump in which a bunch of people have conversations. 
> 
> (more shenanigans are forthcoming, i promise.)

The first thing Sasha hears upon returning to the Archives, the Monday after Jane Prentiss's attack, is an argument. Tim's voice carries the furthest down the hall, loud and belligerent, underscored by Martin's attempts to calm him. Jon must be there too, because Jon's always there, but she's not sure he's actually capable of raising his voice. As she gets close enough to make out their words, though, an uneasy chill runs down her spine.

"— _Telling_ you," Tim is insisting, "she went into the door next to Artefact Storage after giving you her statement, and she never came out."

"Yes, Tim, you've said that four times now." Jon sounds annoyed, which isn't particularly unusual, and extremely agitated, which is. "Shall we head over there? There isn't a room next to Artefact Storage, it takes up that entire side of the building, and you _know_ that—"

Sasha knocks on the partially-open door and sticks her head through, equal parts diffident and unnerved. She definitely hasn't given any statements since the first one, and she has a sneaking suspicion as to who might've done in her place, which only intensifies when she enters Jon's office. He and Martin and Tim are all gathered around his desk, looking like Hell warmed over. They turn in unison to stare at her upon her arrival, each wearing a similar expression of vaguely irritated confusion.

"Excuse me," says Jon, after a long pause, "this area's closed to the public, you're not supposed to be back here."

Sasha's brain skips a beat and she can only stare at him blankly. "I—What?"

"If you want to give a statement, you'll have to make an appointment with Rosie. Now, you're really not meant to be on this level, we've had a bit of a...a pest problem, and it's not safe."

That creeping unease becomes an insistent gnawing between her ribs. "You don't know who I am, do you," she says.

She can see Tim winding up to make some snide remark, and Jon pinches the bridge of his nose. "No offence," he says, "but I really don't c—"

"I'm Sasha James. I've worked with you these past eight months, but—"

"Okay, really?" Tim throws his hands in the air and storms out of the office, barging roughly past her. "Not funny!" She can hear him swearing as he stalks down the hall and out of earshot. Martin and Jon exchange a sour glance.

"It really isn't," Martin says, so coldly that Sasha actually takes a half-step back in surprise. "I don't know if this is some kind of joke, but our friend has been missing for three days, so if you know where she is—"

"It's not a joke!" she insists, voice breaking on the last word. "I barely know what's going on either! It was that thing, I think, the tape should've recorded it—"

"What tape?" says Jon, looking up sharply, in the same breath that Martin says, "What _thing_?" Both of them narrow their eyes at her, but at least neither is storming out just yet.

"There, there was a monster in Artefact Storage, in the table," she says, somewhat desperately. "The one that came in for you, with the web on it?" Jon doesn't say anything, but his eyes dart up towards her, just briefly, and she latches on to that glimmer of recognition. "You even had a statement about it, it's done the same thing before! And it made everyone forget then, too, didn't it? Case, case seven-something, it ate that woman's neighbour, with the journals—"

"＃0070701," he says, rattling off the number with uncanny precision. His tone is perfectly neutral, betraying nothing of his thoughts, but Sasha almost cries with relief.

"Yes! It drew me in as I walked past, and then there was"—She shudders, not wanting to remember—"It sort of _unfolded_ , and its _arms_... It grabbed me a-and dragged me into the table with it, and—Well, like I said, I still had the spare recorder on me; the tape should have caught everything." She trails off, conviction waning under the combined weight of Jon's and Martin's unimpressed stares.

"Sasha said she lost it," Jon says slowly, after another excruciating silence.

Sasha is about to lose it. " _I'm_ Sasha!"

"...Right." Jon rubs both his hands down the sides of his face, dislodging his glasses. He'd already looked exhausted, but now his complexion is taking on an unhealthy tinge of grey between the strips of plaster. "The Sasha I remember told me she dropped the tape recorder in Artefact Storage and couldn't find the cassette when it was knocked loose. I don't suppose you still have it?"

Instinctively she checks her pockets, but she'd ended up having to throw the jumper she'd been wearing away; even if the tape had been there, it wouldn't be here. "No." She sighs and slumps against the door frame, downcast, but looks up again hopefully after a moment. "I could give you a new statement?" she offers. "Tim said the doppelganger did, right? Let me give you mine, and then you can decide which one you believe."

For a second, she fears Jon might actually refuse; but, suspicious as he still appears, he only nods. "All right," he says. He gets up and goes around to sit properly behind his desk, fiddling with the tape recorder.

"I'll, uh, I'll go check on Tim," Martin says, and makes himself scarce, shooting Sasha one last backwards glance as he vanishes down the hall. She closes the door behind her, pulls over a chair, and settles herself anxiously across from Jonathan.

The air seems to crackle as he fixes his undivided attention on her. All the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

"Statement of the alleged Sasha James, regarding her version of events, 29th July 2016," he says. "Recorded direct from subject, 1st August 2016." He pauses just long enough for her to nod that she's ready. "Statement begins."

"Right," Sasha says.

She tells him everything: Getting separated from Tim after leaving the office; finding Elias and heading down to Maintenance, only to lose him as well; winding up in Artefact Storage, searching for another exit and finding the table instead; the way the web on its surface had kept her transfixed long enough for that horrible spindly thing to drag her away; the cobweb palace beyond that, full of marionette spiders and the other victims they had ensnared. She tells him everything, right up until the point that Michael had arrived, and then she hesitates.

She'll have to tread very carefully from this point on. She can't give him the truth about her arrangement with Michael, and she's certainly not about to share anything that happened afterwards, but the words want to pour out of her. It's a conscious effort to choose what she reveals, and Jon's green eyes are digging into her like fingernails.

"I was so sure I was going to get wrapped up in that pillar," she says through another shudder, "turned into a monster spider's meal or worse, but then... Michael was there."

Surprise flits across his face and is quickly smoothed away. "Michael? The same Michael?"

Sasha nods. "He had a woman with him, except it wasn't a woman. It was dressed like me, even down to the blood on my clothes, and it—it looked like a person, I assume like the Sasha you remember, but it was—wrong. Michael said it belonged to the spiders, and that he didn't like it, so he'd trade it for me."

"Why?"

It actually makes her a little queasy to not tell Jon about the price of Michael's assistance. "I don't know what it was or why he's interested in me specifically," she says instead, very carefully, "but I didn't trust him not to be up to something. I told him I wouldn't betray you. When I said it, that I wouldn't let him use me to hurt you, he seemed genuinely surprised. He asked why he'd want to do that, said it's been just fascinating so far, and that he was looking forward to seeing what happened next. I still don't know what he wants with the Archive, but it was better than staying there, so... I agreed.

"He opened a door, and the next thing I knew, I was home. I tried to call, but your mobile wouldn't pick up and neither would your desk phone. I ended up just sort of waiting for Monday to roll around, and then I came back and here I am."

The silence stretches on. Sasha just sits there, hands twisting in her lap as she waits for Jon to speak.

At last he says, "I see."

She scoots forward at once, chair scraping against the tiles. "Well? What do you think?"

"I, ah, I... don't know," Jon says, and Sasha is struck with a forlorn sense of déjà vu. "I remember Ms Patel's statement, of course, but..." He sighs and props his chin in one hand, scowling at the tape recorder as if he can glare the answers out of it. For a minute or two he just sits in a brown study while she chews on her lip, his fingers tapping idly against his bandaged cheek. Then he heaves a sigh and says, "Assuming you really are Sasha—and I very much hope that that's the case—that makes, what, three times now that this Michael has interceded on your or the Institute's behalf?" He drums his fingers some more. "What does it _want_ with us?"

"I have no idea," Sasha says. That part, at least, is completely true. "He said ‘our goals are aligned,’ and whatever that other monster was, they genuinely seemed to hate each other."

"Enemy of my enemy, perhaps?" he muses. "Damn it, none of this makes any sense." He slumps forward again, burying his eyes in the heels of his hands.

"So... you believe me, then?"

"Oh, Hell if I know," he says through his arms. He sounds utterly weary. "You're not destroying anything, so at the very least you're a more conscientious monster than Jane Prentiss."

If he's joking, which she's not entirely certain he is, that's probably a good sign. She opens her mouth to respond, but is interrupted by a sudden chirrup from the intercom. Both Sasha and Jon start violently and stare at it like it might soon explode.

Cautiously, Jon presses the answer button, and without any preamble Elias's voice says, "Would you send Ms James up, please?"

They look from the phone to each other. Sasha stopped believing in coincidences around week three of working for the Institute, and from his expression, Jon is thinking along similar lines.

"Yes," he says after a moment, "but I should probably m—"

"Thank you," Elias says crisply, and hangs up before he can finish.

A long silence follows.

"Did that seem eerily well-timed to you?" says Sasha.

"Define ’eerily‘," mutters Jon with abrupt derision, and she has to snort. "Well, best go find out. Would you fetch Martin and Tim back here as you go?" he adds. "I'll get them up to speed in the meantime."

"Sure." She turns to go, but pauses at the door. "Jon... thank you."

She's not sure what precisely she's thanking him for, but he just waves a vaguely affirmative hand, head still cradled in the other. Sasha goes looking for the others, more than a little apprehensive. She finds them in the break room, Martin pacing around the kitchenette while Tim, looking a bit red in the face, sullenly nurses a cup of tea. He glares bloody murder at her when she approaches; Martin just looks sort of sad. She's not sure which one stings more.

"Jon wants to talk to you," she says softly.

"Right," Martin says. Tim doesn't say anything, but after a moment he wordlessly follows Martin out.

Sasha stares at the wall until she's sure she can maintain her composure, then exhales miserably and heads up the stairs towards Elias's office. He answers at once when she knocks, but doesn't look up from the file he's poring over.

Finally, after a minute of uncertain fidgeting, she says, "You wanted to see me?"

Elias looks her up and down, giving her the acute sensation of being studied. "Yes, and now I have," he says. "Thank you, Sasha, you may go. Please make sure to replace any pertinent identification as soon as possible."

He goes back to the folder, but Sasha just stands there staring at him. "No, wait," she says, "does this mean you... remember me?"

"I've never seen you before in my life, I'm afraid," he says, not unkindly. "I am, however, familiar with the artefact that you encountered, and you are very lucky to have escaped from it."

Sasha continues to stare. Elias has always seemed somewhat lax about the contents of the Archive; the fact that he evidently not only knows what happened to her, but has the entire inventory of Artefact Storage memorised, is suddenly a bit too much to wrap her head around.

She shakes it off with some effort; that's hardly the most pressing issue at present. "If you know it's so dangerous, then why do you keep it? It ought to be destroyed, it's just going to take someone else otherwise—"

Elias's voice turns flinty. "I'm not in the habit of destroying knowledge, Ms James, no matter how baneful it might be. You might as well espouse book-burning on the justification that some writers have penned atrocities." Her aversion must show on her face at this, because he gives a short, satisfied nod. "So you take my point. I can have Sonya restrict access to it if you feel it's still a risk." He turns a page in his file and looks from it to Sasha meaningfully. "Was there anything else?"

There are about a hundred elses, but Sasha can't find any that are coherent enough to put into words. "No, I don't think so," she manages after a moment. 

"Excellent. Good afternoon, then." Once again, the dismissal is obvious. Sasha dithers a moment longer before retreating downstairs, questions and confusion whirling through her head.

Jon doesn't answer when she knocks at his office door, and she doesn't want to overwhelm him, so she lets him be. Absent any other ideas, she eventually finds herself wandering into the stacks. A whole chunk of Section H is missing, shelves sheeted over with thick white plastic; the boxes on either side have been haphazardly shoved back into place without any regard for subject or classification. Getting them sorted again isn't exactly exciting, but it is a distraction, and she gladly sinks into the monotony of organisation.

Her trance isn't interrupted until over an hour later, when Martin pokes his head into view. "Er," he says, and then, sounding a bit sceptical about it, "Sasha?"

"That's me." It's meant to be flippantly upbeat, but it comes out much more sardonic and pointed than that. Sasha sighs and backs down the ladder. "Sorry, Martin, I know it's not your f—"

"Tim's gone home," he says, staring determinedly at a spot just left of her ear. "I don't know what he's—I mean, he'll come around. Jon told us what you said."

"Do you believe it?"

"I'm not really s—" He pauses, brow furrowing, and then his eyes move to focus on her face. "—Yeah," he says, voice still laden with scepticism, "yeah, I think I do."

Sasha blinks. That's not at all what she was expecting, and, judging by his expression, neither was Martin.

"What, really?"

"Yeah, I—It's weird." He chews uncertainly on his lower lip. "I wasn't sure until I saw you again just now. I dunno, I suppose there was just something _off_ about the, uh, double. I mean, _obviously_ , but... She was sort of distant? She seemed really careless about losing the spare recorder, even though I remember the row you and Tim got into when he misplaced your microfiche kit, but I must've just assumed you were tired, I—" He seems to realise that he's babbling a little and cuts himself short, half-shrugging before letting his hands fall heavily against his sides. "I dunno," he repeats, and tries a smile. "But I am pretty sure you're not a monster."

Sasha squints suspiciously at him a moment, then tries a smile of her own. "Well, let's call that progress. Thanks, Martin." She hesitates, the awkwardness growing so thick she could cut it with a knife, and then adds, "For the record, I'm sorry I didn't take you seriously about Prentiss."

Martin shuffles a little. "Well, you know. ’A pile of worms stole my phone and texted my co-workers,‘ I probably wouldn't have believed it either."

It's a brittle enough attempt at humour, but Sasha laughs anyway, and the tension between them begins to dissipate, just slightly.

It doesn't really go back to normal after that—not that the Magnus Institute had much of a standard for ‘normal’ in the first place—but eventually things settle more or less into place again. She does, it turns out, have to get all of her identification replaced, which is an enormous hassle that ends with her mum having to post her a copy of her birth certificate, because it doesn't seem to want to be scanned. Vivien blames incompetent electronics vendors; Sasha chews her lip until it cracks and tries desperately, futilely, not to think about what that might mean. At least Martin seems to accept that she's who she says she is, and after a few days, Jon starts to follow suit.

Tim is harder to convince. It takes him nearly two weeks to stop shooting her resentful glares and refusing to speak to her without one of the other two acting as mediator. Even then, he tries to trip her up, referencing old half-forgotten in-jokes and events she remembers only vaguely. She must pass the test, because this too eventually tapers off; whatever's left between them afterwards is fragile and sharp-edged like broken glass, but Sasha thinks the pieces might still be salvaged with enough care. By the time Jonathan works up the courage and-or stupidity to venture back down into the tunnels again, they're at least enough on speaking terms to agree that he's being a right idiot.

Of Michael, meanwhile, she sees very little. Once, she catches a glimpse of him in their old cafe, his reflection dragging over a passing car as it waves to her, but when she makes it across the street and into the shop he's gone. He drops in to her flat a few days later, apologetic that he can't stay longer but utterly vague as to what exactly is keeping him so busy. It's enough to reassure Sasha that she hasn't been abandoned, at least, but she's not sure she wants to speculate as to whatever this new project of his is.

There's enough on her plate to deal with anyways, what with Jon's repeated expeditions into the tunnels, the fallout of finding Gertrude's body, and the new police officers milling around. The more things change, she supposes; she'll cross the Michael bridge when she gets to it. In the meantime, Sasha thinks, with something approaching fondness, it looks like she's got her work cut out for her. 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm still not happy with the ending on this, but it's only meant as a bridge to things i'm looking forward to writing much more, so after two months of editing and re-editing it I figured I should just wash my hands of the thing. i also realized belatedly that it contradicts the canon timeline between seasons one and two, but considering the fact that the pov character entirely precludes it being canon-compliant anyway, i don't really feel like rewriting it for a seventeenth time. whoops. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
